Kitchen Florist: The right flowers add beauty, flavor to food

Edible flowers were popular during the Victorian era, but you don’t need a complicated recipe to cook with them. In fact, the simpler, the better.

Kathryn Rem

Edible flowers were popular during the Victorian era, but you don’t need a complicated recipe to cook with them. In fact, the simpler, the better.

“Let the flowers do the talking. Let the flowers make the beauty of the dish,” said Carol Schlitt, nutrition and wellness educator for the University of Illinois Extension in Edwardsville.

Something as simple as freezing pansies in ice cubes or sprinkling sugar-coated violets on cupcakes create a beautiful finish.

“It’s adds a point of conversation, and it adds good flavor. Most people have basil growing in a pot for pesto, but the flowers can be used, too,” she said.

Edible flowers can be purchased in the produce sections of some supermarkets, or they can be freshly picked. Don’t use any flowers that have been sprayed with chemicals, including blooms from a florist, and don’t eat flowers picked from the side of a road (which easily pick up road dirt). If you’re not sure a flower is edible, don’t use it.

More advice from Schlitt:

- Eat only the petals; remove the pistils and stamens.

- Store flowers in the refrigerator and use as soon as possible.

- Wash flowers right before using because water can wilt them.

-Test for color-fastness before using so they don’t bleed all over a cake’s white icing.

- If flowers are used as a garnish, they should be edible.

-Be cautious about serving flowers to children in case they have an allergic reaction.

Schlitt likes to make Hearts and Flowers Salad, a colorful medley of baby field greens, flower petals and thin slices of ham and cheese cut into hearts.

“Pansies, chrysanthemums or dianthus are pretty in the salad. I really like nasturtiums. They have a peppery flavor, a pungency,” she said. Flowers from herb plants (dill, oregano, savory, thyme) add an herbal note.

She also likes to make “composed butter.” Beat 1/2 cup of finely chopped or shredded flowers into a softened stick of unsalted butter. Season with salt, pepper, lemon juice and/or shallots. Refrigerate until ready to use on breads and rolls, pancakes and waffles, steaks off the grill, fish, vegetables and pasta.

To decorate cakes or cupcakes, make crystallized flowers: Dip whole flowers or petals in pasteurized egg white (you can use egg-white powder sold at cake decorating stores) and then sprinkle with superfine granulated sugar. Let them dry at least eight hours on wax paper. Store in layers between wax paper in a tightly sealed, airtight container.

Schlitt suggests floating flowers on soups or in punch bowls, sprinkling them on muffins and cupcakes, stuffing blossoms with hors d’oeuvre fillings and garnishing the top of brie or camembert cheese with a cascade of petals.

“For a wedding shower, you can use the colors of the wedding,” she added.

Place 12 red hibiscus flowers in a teapot. Add 1 cup boiling water; let steep a few minutes. Tea will look purple. Squeeze juice of lime into teapot. The tea will turn red. Sweeten with a little honey, but not too much as the hibiscus nectar is already sweet enough for hummingbirds.

Makes 1 serving.

Blue Flower Chive Omelet
From “Cooking in the Shaker Spirit” by James Haller and Jeffrey Paige (Yankee Books)

Melt butter in a frying pan. Combine eggs, milk, salt, pepper, and chives in a blender and pour into the hot, buttered pan. As the edges of the omelet begin to set, reduce the heat somewhat and with a spatula turn the uncooked eggs to the bottom of the skillet until they are all cooked.

Sprinkle the washed chive blossoms across the top of the eggs and then fold the omelet over and let cook another few minutes. Serve.